Complaints on Columbus Board's budgeting setup grow

Wednesday

Jun 4, 2014 at 12:01 AMJun 4, 2014 at 9:50 AM

The line of Columbus Board of Education members feeling left out of the process that the district uses to develop its $1.3 billion budget grew last night. This time it was board member Mary Jo Hudson, appointed in February, who said district staff members need to do a better job of involving the board when it comes to the district's spending plan.

Bill Bush, The Columbus Dispatch

The line of Columbus Board of Education members feeling left out of the process that the district uses to develop its $1.3 billion budget grew last night.

This time it was board member Mary Jo Hudson, appointed in February, who said district staff members need to do a better job of involving the board when it comes to the district’s spending plan.

“I think that we need to have a little bit more transparency with the board,” Hudson told Superintendent Dan Good and his budget staff.

Hudson pointed out how much the district’s process differs from the one used when she served on the Columbus City Council, which has staff members who review the budget and holds hearings about the plan.

Last night, school board members were asked to approve scores of spending items for next year, but they hadn’t seen the budget that must be approved by July 1, Hudson complained.

The board is scheduled to get its first look at the budget on June 17, staff members said.

Good, who took over a year ago, defended the staff, saying that “there’s no intent to not be transparent.” He said those staff members were following the procedures and timelines that had been in place for years under former Superintendent Gene Harris. If the board wants to hold budget hearings, Good would be happy to comply, he said.

“Actually I’m quite pleased that they would take an interest,” Good said of board members after the meeting.

Over the years, board members have complained about the dearth of information when it comes to the budget.

Former board member Stephanie Groce once described the process as, “The administration basically says, ‘We told you we would spend $1.3 billion, and, by golly, we did.’ The board responds, ‘Job well done.’??”

When Gary Baker took over as board president in January, he called on the board to bring back its finance committee, which was dismantled in 2006.

But that committee never returned. Baker said after last night’s meeting that the finance committee would be ideally suited to hold budget hearings.

Hudson also objected to the district not taking bids for contracts on millions of dollars in food and insurance services, instead choosing an option to extend contracts for a year. All food contracts are rebid at least every three years, said Joe Brown, food-services director. Hudson and member W. Shawna Gibbs voted last night against the unbid food contracts, which passed 4-2.

In other business, the board sold two school buildings for $300,000 each to a charter-school operator that currently leases them. The former Dana and Main Street elementaries — Dana on the West Side and Main on the Near East Side — need major renovations, and zoning prohibits commercial uses, said Anne Dorrian-Lenzotti, director of real estate. The buyer, Columbus Collegiate Academy, already operates charter schools in them.

The board also approved lowering the sale price of the historic Barrett Middle School near German Village from $2.6 million to $1.85 million, because the buyer, Columbus Housing Partnership, has not been able to get the rezoning it needs for its original development plan.